WHAT EATS ANTS?

Ants are near the bottom of the food chain and near the outside of the food web, so there are lots of animals that like to eat them.

In the world’s tropical regions, some mammals specialize in eating ants. Many of these animals are actually called anteaters, and they have long, skinny tongues with which to pull ants into their mouths.

Many frogs, arachnids, or 8-legged predators, feathered predators, serpents and other reptiles also like to eat ants. And any ant that falls into a stream, river or pond is likely to get eaten by a fish.

Some people even eat ants. One kind of ant that lives in the Amazon rainforest tastes like a lemon drop, and the children who live there eat as many of these ants as they can get!

And . . . what do ants eat? Ants eat almost anything, from other insects to decaying animal flesh to fungi (funguses) that they grow themselves in their own underground gardens!

An OMNIVORE is an animal that mixes vegetation and other animals into its diet.

FOOD WEBS!

Food Webs Are Maps Of What Eats What, And Who Eats Whom! Below, You'll Find Links To Several Food Webs.

ALL FOOD ENERGY STARTS WITH THE SUN

A food web—every food web—begins with sunlight. Plants turn that sunlight into usable food energy, and that energy is transfered to the herbivorous animals that eat those plants. When those plant eating animals are themselves eaten by predators, the energy is transfered higher up the food chain and becomes concentrated in the bodies of the top, or apex, predators.
The apex predators return energy to the food web after they die and their bodies are consumed by scavengers, fungi and microbes.